Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East
May 28, 1020
Press Letters continues its bias
Most newspapers, whatever bias may be found in their news and feature articles, manage to keep a fair letters page. Not so The Press (see posts of 8 Mar 2010 and 17 Dec 2009). The most overt expression of this bias occurred in January 2009 when the Letters editor, Michael Vance, awarded a prize (Akaroa salmon and a Croxley pen) to a letter that compared Israel's war against Gaza to the Nazis' invasion of Holland and the deportation of Jews. The latest example is described in the following letter (edited):
There you go again, with your subtle anti-Israel bias. Look at this latest episode:
On May 22,after closing your column to letters about Israel, you decided to reopen the subject, as usual, with an anti-Israel letter, “Chomsky mistreated ” (147 words). Have you ever reopened the "debate" with a pro-Israel letter?
On May 25, you published a counter letter “Right to bar Chomsky ”, after editing it down to 98 words and distorting its impact. You have done this many times in the past, and even placed inaccurate or out-of-context headlines over pro-Israel letters that have invited and elicited attack. Other letters criticising the May 22 letter were rejected. OK, despite all this, at least you can say you had one letter on each side. But you didn't stop there.
On May 26 you published a 41-word letter that was little more than a personal attack on the writer of the May 25 letter and said nothing about Chomsky. Then on May 27 you published a 52-word letter attacking her again and her claim that Chomsky is “an enemy of Israel”.
All in all you devoted four letters to the Chomsky incident, with a 3-1 anti-Israel ratio, and a word ratio of 240-98.
And the irony is that this was pretty much of a non-incident in the first place; Israel had every right to bar Chomsky. There is only one word for this: shameful. Perhaps you might consider publishing my new letter, submitted below.
Submitted for publication (147 words, same as Ms Griffiths'), but without editing, please:
The four letters published about Noam Chomsky's aborted visit to Israel have all missed the point. Israel has been fighting against Arab terrorists and armies for 61 years. Part of this fight is a propaganda war in which Mr. Chomsky is a prominent leader.
Every nation has the right, if not the duty, to bar from its shores those who would aid and abet its enemies. Many countries have denied entry or expelled people for less anti-government activity than Mr Chomsky's. To take an admittedly extreme example, would New Zealand have allowed Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich, to enter its shores during WWII?
While Israel has been criticised for guarding the security of its borders, it is the country most in need of that security. Even within Israel almost every restaurant and shopping mall has a security guard to stop suicide bombers.
Chairman, Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East
The submitted letter was published the next day without abridgment.